


Valiant

by cordite



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Ship all the ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-03
Updated: 2009-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-01 00:23:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/349947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordite/pseuds/cordite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes hanging on can't be enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Valiant

**Author's Note:**

> Comments always welcome. Enjoy!

**Title:** Valiant  
 **Author:** [](http://jubilee-pizza.livejournal.com/profile)[**jubilee_pizza**](http://jubilee-pizza.livejournal.com/)  
 **Rating:** PG-13 for some mature themes  
 **Parings:** Jack/Ianto, Jack/Ten  
 **Summary:** Sometimes hanging on can't be enough.  
 **Disclaimer:** Clearly, I don't own anything.  
 **Author's Note:** Comments always welcome. Enjoy!

_"Winter"  
Joshua Radin_

_I should know  
Who I am by now  
I walk  
The record stands somehow  
Thinking of winter_

_Your name is the splinter inside me  
While I wait_

 

 

Jack had lost track of how long he’d been on the Valiant. It might have been hours or days or months or years. Each time he came back from the blackness he had a horrible moment where he forgot, just for a second, where he was. Then the full reality of his hell would come crashing down around him. And each time he wished, just for that second after the moment of recognition, that the blackness would swallow him again. That finally, _finally_ , it would take him for good. But it never took, and he didn’t think it ever would. Somewhere in the recesses of that boiler room, or maybe of his own mind, he could hear the TARDIS screaming at the wrongness of it all; of the paradox, of him. And the Doctor’s words echoed all around him. Maybe this torture was the Universe’s way of exacting some sort of revenge. Jack thought he deserved it. He’d jumped ship for a cure that would never come.

He really did love them all. Maybe that was the real nature of his curse. Too much love and too little time. (What was time to him in the long run?) The unending loss of everyone and everything, being forced to bear witness to the end of the universe itself and knowing that he’d be there again one day. It was almost too much to take. That’s why he had thought the Doctor would accept him. They could have borne the burden together.

He desperately wanted to lose his mind; to forget forever where he was and why and even his own name. But with each death and revival came a lucid mind fresh for tearing apart. And it seemed his longing for home became amplified each time. He missed it desperately. The place he’d so hated that had represented nothing but anticipation and lies had never felt so much like the place where he belonged. He missed the excitement and the routine, the normalcy and the extraordinary nature of everyday life, the exquisite counter balance of everything. He missed the small things too. The fog that rolled of the bay, the way the shops lit up at night, the sound his coat made while it blew around him on the roofs of the city, the occasional snow that always teased him but never stuck around long enough, the smell of his warm cup of coffee so carefully laid out on his desk every morning when he emerged from his bunker.

He missed people who cared too much and people who pretended not to at all and people who gave and gave but never asked for anything in return. But most of all he missed him. The only thought that kept Jack from breaking. The last thread holding his seams together. He could see the young face, the too old eyes, the soft smile; feel the rough wool suits and smooth bare skin; could hear those damned Welsh vowels. Even on the days when he was half mad with the pain and couldn’t find a single thing left to hold on to, he’d think of him. Wondering if he was safe, if he was fighting. Jack knew that he’d be disappointed that Jack had run away, abandoned them for the next thrill around the corner. The guilt and grief rattled Jack to the core, but he held onto it for dear life. It was enough keep him from slipping. He waited.

 

And when the day finally came that his hell ended, that the Doctor asked Jack the question he’d so desperately wanted to hear for over a century, he knew there was only one answer he could give.

 

End.


End file.
